Electricity meters may often include one or more radios for communicating with external devices such as collectors, relays, other meters, and other control and communication devices. However, incorporating one or more radios within an electricity meter presents a number of problems related to antenna design and placement. For example, it may be difficult to include one or more radios and their antennas within the limited size and shape of the meter housing. One approach to these problems relies on cabling from the interior of the meter to external antennas that are outside of the meter housing. These external antennas may sometimes be formed on flexible printed circuit board material attached to the sides or face of the meter housing. However, antennas that are external to the meter housing may be problematic for a number of reasons. For example, antennas that are external to the meter housing may require the use of cabling, may be expensive, may require complex installation and may require an isolation circuit to protect persons from dangerous high voltage potential.
Existing designs of internally located antennas are also problematic. For example, one problem related to internal antennas is that the physical presence of other devices and circuitry within the meter can be a source of electrical noise that is coupled to the antennas and is thus is a potential source of interference.
Generally, planar antennas printed on the meter's main printed circuit board are an effective, inexpensive approach. However, such planar antennas may require a certain amount of board area to be efficient radiators. In many cases, there may not be sufficient area on a main printed circuit board to include one or more antennas along with other necessary electrical components. In some cases, discrete antennas may be attached or soldered to the main meter board. However, this does not significantly improve the situation since these antennas require a ground plane and clear area devoid of circuit components to achieve useable antenna efficiency.